WND EXCLUSIVE

Evidence mounts: Abortion, birth control cause cancer

Rate in younger women doubled in 33 years

They’re the carcinogens you won’t read much about in the establishment media: birth-control pills and abortion.

The evidence linking hormones and breast cancer just keeps pouring in. What kind of hormones? Those found in birth-control pills and those associated with abortions.

The prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported Feb. 27 the rate of metastatic breast cancer in women ages 25 to 39 nearly doubled between 1976 and 2009, from 1.53 to 2.9 per 100,000.

The American Council on Science and Health calls the increase “slight.” But Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, points out there has been no corresponding increase in older women.

Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, said it was “utterly stunning” that JAMA lead author Rebecca Johnson’s team called the increased incidence in advanced cancers among young women “small.”

“That’s a nearly doubled increase in the incidence of a disease with a mean five-year fatality rate of 69 percent,” she said. “By contrast, the mean five-year fatality rate among women with breast cancers that have not spread to distant sites is 13.2 percent.”

And what distinguishes the younger women from the older? The sexual revolution, says Orient.

“Young women in huge numbers have taken higher doses of hormones than their menopausal sisters – in birth-control pills,” she said.

In 2005, the World Health Organization classified oral contraceptives as Class-1 carcinogens, one of only about 100 substances found to be “carcinogenic in humans.”

Orient said breast cancer is generally hormone sensitive and is often treated with anti-estrogens. And pregnancy is the most important cause of a high estrogen level.

She noted estrogen increases by 2,000 percent by the end of the first trimester, increasing cancer vulnerability. However, by the end of pregnancy, 85 percent of breast-cancer tissue has become cancer-resistant because of hormones made by the fetal-placenta presence.

That means a completed pregnancy protects against breast cancer. The protection is lost when a pregnancy is aborted, making a woman even more vulnerable to breast cancer.

Orient said at least 29 studies have shown a significant increase in breast cancer in women who have had an abortion. She said many studies indicate abortion may increase the risk of breast cancer by an average of 30 percent.

Orient says women “at the very least lose the protective effect of the first full-term pregnancy if they abort their first baby.”

She thinks women should be informed about the growing evidence linking abortion and breast cancer. Even if they do have an abortion, she said, they could at least be extra-vigilant and get early screening.

“It’s peculiar, but not surprising, that the authors offered no hypotheses in their paper explaining the increased incidence in advanced cancers among young women,” said Malec. “Abortion and use of hormonal contraceptive steroids among teenagers are the elephants in the living room that the medical establishment ignores.”

WND has been reporting on the topic for years.

In 2010, Bradley Mattes, executive director of the Life Issues Institute told WND that for years, major research institutes have denied any link between abortion and breast cancer because the issue has been “politicized.”

“It’s not politically correct to acknowledge that,” said Mattes. “It took many years for the link between smoking and lung cancer to be acknowledged.”

The Komen Foundation contributed $731,000 to Planned Parenthood in fiscal year 2009, and $3 million over the preceding five years.

“They deny there’s a link between abortion and breast cancer,” Mattes told WND at the time. “Even if the media came down and hit them in the head, I don’t believe that they’d change their mind because they believe abortion is a positive.”

According to Mattes, the Komen Institute was fully aware of the new developments in the study of breast cancer causes but would continue to support Planned Parenthood in any case, because the organization is “steeped” in pro-abortion philosophy.

“The details have been shared repeatedly with the organization,” said Mattes. “This is not an issue of them being uninformed.”

Mattes noted that Nancy Brinker, the founder of Komen, has been involved with Planned Parenthood for many years.

A Komen spokesman confirmed to WND that Brinker did “at one time many years ago, serve briefly on the board of directors for the North Texas chapter of Planned Parenthood.”

That 2010 WND article also pointed out evidence was mounting that abortion contributes to breast cancer. A study in Sri Lanka found abortion “triples” the risk of breast cancer.

The London Daily Mail reported that three other studies, in China, Turkey and the U.S., came to “similar conclusions.”

According to the British paper, Louise Brinton, a senior researcher with the U.S. National Cancer Institute who did not accept the link, reversed her position earlier that year to say she was now convinced abortion increased the risk of breast cancer by about 40 percent.

Another organization fighting abortion and breast cancer, the Coalition on Abortion–Breast Cancer, quoted a study conducted by a second National Cancer Institute-commissioned scientist, Janet Daling, whom it described as “an abortion supporter:”

“[A]mong women who had been pregnant at least once, the risk of breast cancer in those who had experienced an induced abortion was 50 percent higher than among other women.”

A WND story in 2007 reported a study showed abortions could be classified as carcinogens, because the number of breast cancer cases could be predicted reasonably accurately based on the number of abortions in a given population.

The study, “The Breast Cancer Epidemic: Modeling and Forecasts Based on Abortion and Other Risk Factors,” was done by Patrick S. Carroll of London-based research institute PAPRI. The results were published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

It showed, that among risk factors, abortion is the “best predictor of breast cancer.”

The results showed that in nations with higher abortions rates, such as England and Wales, higher breast cancer incidence was reported.

“Where abortion rates are low (i.e., Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic) a smaller increase is expected,” the study said.

WND reported in 2005 that for the first time, an abortion clinic had accepted an order of judgment for performing the procedure without informing the patient of psychological risks and increased risk of breast cancer.

The lawsuit against the All Women’s Health Services clinic in Portland, Ore., was the second of its kind in the U.S. to be successfully prosecuted but the first to obtain a judgment.

Jonathan Clark, attorney for the 19-year-old plaintiff, told WND he believed the judgment “makes a pretty powerful statement about the science,” indicating the clinic was not willing to argue against the claim that there is a link between abortion and breast cancer.

In April 2009, seven researchers from organizations highly respected in scientific academia had published a study, “Risk factors for triple-negative breast cancer in women under the age of 45 years,” in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.

The focus of the report was the revelatory finding that “a distinct etiology” exists between oral contraceptive use and triple-negative breast cancer, a particularly virulent form of the disease that typically strikes women under 45, including many African-American.

This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

The seven researchers concluded the risk for triple-negative breast cancer rose 250 to 420 percent, depending on the length of oral contraceptive use.